


.The Fragrance of Bones.

by Sanguis



Series: The Gods Below [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dragons, F/M, Gods, Immortality, Multi, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 05:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1806478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanguis/pseuds/Sanguis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sees the darkness as it lurks beneath the cracks of his existence, but he's still a sweet young thing. It reminds her of those days of her far away youth, of how sweet and dark her father always is, how kind and melancholy her uncle smiles at her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	.The Fragrance of Bones.

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday gift to myself! Fourth installment in The Gods Below. No need to read the previous ones

"You have witchcraft in your lips, there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them…” - William Shakespeare, Henry V

 

91 to 351 years after Bartram’s apotheosis.

* * *

 

 

Of her childhood, Qiturah remembers that she grew up chasing Qamra and Qamar around The Tree. They were careful not to step on the roots, or to trip over them, and soon learnt that it was like a dance. High above, blackbirds, ravens and crows would sing their songs - not pretty things, but when their wings fluttered, her siblings and she knew that their father would come kiss the crowns of their hair and hug them close as they slept.

 

He would tell them tales of how he’d created each: Qamar is the stones of the moon, with skin the colour of the earth and hair as pale as the moon. Qamra is the fragments of the stars, her skin as luminous as those diamonds above, and her hair as dark as the night sky. Qiturah is the crystal waters of the sea, with her marine blue hair and copper skin.

“[Miye drokkena](http://-/),” he says softly. “I am proud of my children.”

Qamra plays with the stars until they fall into her hair and refuse to leave. Every moonless night, Qamar and Qiturah make an effort to count them and hurry them back home in the sky, but they seem to not know the difference between the waves of Qamra’s hair and the tapestry that is the sky. They sometimes pass to Qamar when Qamra’s hair gets too crowded, and he convinces them to shape themselves into tiny constellations he then adorns Qiturah’s hair with. Together, they glitter.

The Black Palace looms behind the great tree. There is nothing but some stones and the horizon where once the King’s suite had enclosed the courtyard. Uncle Bartram had walked with them through the remaining halls and rooms, and told them how The Palace no longer exists in the mortal world, that he had left the city behind.

She remembers too, how the [Sombrae Haetrena](http://-/) came to be; After the[Skurtaem Raessaena](http://-/) had spent a night with a human, [Bartram](http://melancholicpandemonium.tumblr.com/post/69993029610/kisses-of-dead-things) had granted each of them one of his dead things, and they nurtured them until their bellies had grown too big. Then, each birthed three children, one pale-skinned, the other as brown as the earth and yet another in-between, copper like Qiturah. Her siblings and she were nearly grown then, almost ready to stretch their scaled wings and take to the sky.

Qamra goes first, as the eldest. She flies at night and disappears; later, Qiturah hears that she finds a lovely haetre to give her heart to. Qamar goes next, a year later; he finds a crater next to a pond and settles there where he can hoard a treasure of knives. Then he falls in love with a spirit in a pond. Qiturah waits.

When she does fly, she  cannot understand her siblings’ tendency to settle, the skies and seas call to her more than the earth and trees do. She visits Qamar and Qamra nonetheless; Qamra has settled in the mountains behind the forest where the Sombrae Haetrena lives. When their uncle’s people sing to moonless skies, she descends with her partner, in glittering starlight and smoky shadows, to dance to their songs.

Qamar is also there with his [Adüe Silü](http://melancholicpandemonium.tumblr.com/post/79857569796/were-fishing-up-our-dead-hope) and their countless children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so forth. They are beautiful creatures, and Qiturah wonders whether [E Maedü](http://-/) will grant her such lovely children one day. But children mean being earthbound, and the thought frightens her.

She finds a boy, a man - humans are so peculiar, truly, so short-lived - and he’s half-haetre too. He looks at her first bewildered, then with wonder. His strawberry blond hair flies wildly in the wind.

“Are you a sombrae haetre, like my mother?” He stumbles over the name, like his tongue can’t quite grasp its shape.

“[Nuzj](http://-/),,” She says. He struggles to understand, but his blood calls to the tongue of shadows nonetheless. “[Eme f’ümae drokke - Yelü viy’E Ressiye Paerlum](http://-/).”

Harlan is his name, and he’s heard of his mother’s strange gods. His father tells them they’re not real, that his mother was just eccentric, a witch, but Harlan’s blood calls for something greater than the Human Light-maker. His father had cast his mother out, and the town had burnt her as a pariah - though Qiturah knows better than believe sombrae haetre will die of such trivial things. Her mistake is telling Harlan exactly that.

She sees the darkness as it lurks beneath the cracks of his existence, but he’s still a sweet young thing. It reminds her of those days of her far away youth, of how sweet and dark her father always is, how kind and melancholy her uncle smiles at her.

They travel together to see the wonders of the world, to reach the edges of land and swim in salty seas. There are no [Pyodae Yelüna](http://-/) in those waters, and it strikes Qiturah as an odd, desolate place, but she teaches the fish her tongue of shadows, the language of her family. She teaches Harlan not to eat them, they are, after all, like children to her.

She shares her words with him, all the songs she’d heard [E Skurtaem Raessaena](http://-/) sing. Harlan never really grasps the language, he sometimes stumbles and stutters and sometimes the sound is not correct. Qiturah is patient - at least they understand each other. At least they can sleep in the shadows of trees, fingers twined.

Half-lings don’t live as long as haetrena do, and haetrena are not immortal as the [drokkena](http://-/) are, but Qiturah resigns herself to this fact. She resolves to give Harlan her love as he deserves it. But within fifty years or so, Harlan begins to age, and he realises that he has not inherited his mother’s affinity for necromancy - at least, not in an extent that will help him live. After all, he’s always lived with the humans, and they cut their trees, take their life without giving back.

He asks her for impossible things, for the path to the arbour of her childhood home, for her life and blood. “[Miye maedü](http://-/) - my mother didn’t die,” he whispers. “You said, those people of the shadow live longer.”

“[Pre nem fe murt kyòm’E Dyure yozjae nem](http://-/),” she tells him. Haetrena don’t live forever, they can only evade their death as long as her uncle permits it. She could have given him her blood, if he had been patient and she hadn’t been carrying life - life that she would’ve nurtured in his memory and honour. But he’s not happy with this simple legacy, nor with sharing her love.

"I will take their souls then," He says. "They’re just as immortal as you, are they not?"

She flees from his grasp and greed, spreads her wings and finds some consolation in the winds. She waits below the sea, where she knows he can’t reach her, where her fish-children whisper kind words, where they protect her.

When the time comes, she rises from the water and gives birth to twins in a remote village near a harbour, where he won’t find them. The eldest is Florent, dark-skinned like his uncle, and the youngest is Faust, pale as sea-foam. Their hair is copper-red and orange in the sun, like the flowers in the fields of her youth. She wants to give them more, longs to take them to the meadows of her childhood, but she is afraid that he’ll find them even there.

“[Maedü Murte](http://-/),” she says as she kisses her sons goodbye. They smell like flowers but also like the sea, like grass but also faintly of the blood they had been born in. “[Paerosse nem, yuzje’me - fir gaetu](http://-/).”

For the first time, she finds herself unwilling to take to her beloved skies; she walks instead to her brother’s crater and cries. E Pyodae Yelüna hear her first, but their songs can’t lighten her heart. Qamar promises to watch over her children, but the reassurance and relief that follow his promises don’t take root in Qiturah’s heart for long.

Her fish-children have told her terrible things, of the monster she’d left behind. Their words follow her across many fields and downs until she crosses paths with her pressayena. They don’t have any mercy for her either; “[Nür dezjom otivye krae](http://-/),” they hiss. “[Ezj’E Dyure.](http://-/)”

“[Oie miye krae](http://-/)?” Qiturah asks. “[Otvu tizj’eti](http://-/).”

“[Tomss’eti](http://-/),” they hiss back. “[Tomsse tiye krae viy’otvu.](http://-/)”

She knows she’ll have to kill Harlan to get his heart - and for him to return hers. E Skurtaem Reassaena stay with her for a night, they hold her between them and sing songs to prepare her for what’s to come. “[Nür aeyisste’be](http://-/).” They whisper to her in the morning. She gives them each a kiss on the brow as she leaves, and then she is alone, walking in meadows where the flowers are not red.

She finds Harlan within the week, beyond mountain, valleys, plains, so many landscapes that she’d grown dizzy with their emptiness. She lands near a river that cuts through red rocks, and folds her wings cautiously. The dry air cuts against her scales; she’s lain too long in cool waters.

The town is quiet, not even dogs bark. As Qiturah climbs down from the roof on which she perches, she returns to her humanoid form, though she retains her wings. The winds are her only friends now.

Harlan waits for her outside the mill that balances precariously on wooden planks. It juts out from the side of the nearest hill overlooking the small village, and it’s less dusty than what lies below. Even so, Qiturah is not certain whether her eyes water at the sight of Harlan, or because the wind picks up all the red dust and earth and flings it in her face. It smells and tastes of rust.

"You said you would love me," Harlan says softly. His voice is raspy, and his lips are cracked.

“[Eb'an beza müssael](http://-/).” Her wings tremble behind her, but she can’t fold them in any more than they already are. The heat of the sun is too much for her, but she has to stand and face this.

He lunges at her headfirst and she’s not quick enough to avoid a graze - her body has grown heavier since carrying her twins, and the ocean had made her feel deceptively light. Still, she’s proud of her shape, the body of a mother, much as she still has to learn how to manoeuver it now. She flaps her wings, but before she can fully ascend, someone tackles her to the ground from behind.

As she rolls unto the ground, she realises that the creature is undead - an abomination. She rips its neck with her claws and teeth; its blood is sour, acidic almost, tainted and repugnant. She stands slowly, spitting out black blood. “[Kyuve eb'an hèsti](http://-/)?”

Harlan grins at her. He’s no longer in the shadows of the mill, and Qiturah sees that half his face has sunken in and contorted horribly, like it’s been burnt and hadn’t healed properly. People rise behind him, but they are no longer what they once were; they have no pupils or irises and their heads are all tilted, some unnaturally so. Humans weren’t born with the same natural talent for necromancy as haetrena were - taint and rot are an inevitable consequence.

And then there is the abominations they create, the cruelty they inflict upon others. Qiturah nearly drops to her knees, but Harlan doesn’t give her a chance; he’s quick to grab her by the neck. “Human souls are imperfect but they serve for a while.” He spits in her face. “And now you’ve come to me willingly, drokke.”

She closes her eyes.  _I am a dragon_ , she thinks,  _daughter of the Black Ones. Mother of the winds and seas_. She feels her body grow, and the fires inside her burn too hot to contain. She thinks of her brother and sister, of her crown of stars and the fields of red blood. She thinks of her new-borns that must grow without the warmth of her love, sons that she’d nurtured for only a short few months.

Qiturah purges the area with those thoughts, fiery and bright. She faintly hears Harlan scream, so she whispers goodbye to him and all of the love she held for him. She holds unto the memory of her children when she falls unto the ground, because she’s spent so much of herself she can barely move. She’s become too light, too frail, but her wings fail to carry her to her beloved seas, where she can immerse herself in cold waters and have her fish-children guard her body again. She falls at the shore, and the foams of the sea lick at the tips of her hair and fingers.

Eventually, she picks herself up from the sand and bathes in her salty waters, and now it’s time to return for her children. She’s still too tired; she lands at her brother’s feet and sleeps more, but when she wakes she sees her boys and all the years she’s missed. They’re beautiful creatures, and they carry horns she knows her father must’ve gifted them.

As if in revenge for having decimated the heart E Skurtaem Raessaena had coveted, her pressayena take her boys from her before she can love them enough. She finds them again in the fields of her youth, behind the arbour she had left behind for the wandering skies. She shares them with E Maedü now, but that’s not hardship - at least she can hold them and kiss them, like her father had once done.

She tells them nothing of their father.


End file.
